Blood spattered the messenger’s tunic. He didn’t have an open cut, though his left cheek was swollen from a blow. He paid no attention to Herosilla despite having to look past her to see Numitor. “Servius wants to know what to do with the ones we’ve got?” he added.
“Release them to me,” Herosilla said. “Talpus here can lead me to where they’re being held. I’ll return with them to Palatium.”
“Huh?” the messenger said as his eyes focused on Herosilla for the first time.
“Yes,” Numitor said. He smiled like a weasel moving toward its prey. “Do as this one says, Talpus.” Herosilla smiled back at him. Numitor’s attendant and the messenger looked at them in fear and horror.
The bonfire in the center of Palatium was stoked high as a beacon for herdsmen coming in from the surrounding communities, but it hadn’t illuminated the track up the hill’s steep southern face. Herosilla stumbled repeatedly during the climb; once she would have fallen except for Remus’ quick hand on her shoulder.
Acca and the three shepherds hadn’t had any difficulty. Even Roscio, half delirious from the pain of the broken bone in his right forearm, plodded surefootedly through the dark.
There were scores of men around the fire; perhaps as many as a hundred. A fellow Herosilla didn’t recognize turned at the sound of the returning Luperci and cried, “It’s an attack!”
“No, we’re coming home!” Remus shouted. “And if you ever want to see your home again, Balthus, you’d better not aim that spear at me!”
Remus had been clubbed unconscious, but the bloody bandage around his head was the only present sign of the attack. He spoke and moved like a man in perfect health.
Romulus pushed through the crowd of assembled shepherds. “Remus?” he said. “We were coming to get you.”
“You were coming to have your heads lopped off,” Herosilla said, pitching her voice to carry. “What did you think was going to happen when you attacked Alba, you dimwit? There’s five townsmen for every one of you, and I shouldn’t wonder if they had better weapons besides.”
Romulus scowled like the start of an avalanche. “Women don’t understand these things,” he said.
“This woman understands quite well,” Herosilla said. “Which is why you’re going to do this my way instead of cocking it up again. I can’t afford a failure.”
She’d changed back to peasant garb before leaving Alba, so she didn’t have silk and ornaments to overawe the gathered herdsmen. The climb up the Capitoline would have wrecked the fine clothing anyway.
“I’ve been wondering, brother,” Remus said. His tone was reasonable, but he spoke loudly enough that he could be heard well into the crowd of armed herdsmen. “How is it you happened to be a hundred strides behind the rest of us when Numitor’s men attacked? You’re usually a better runner than that. Is it because you believed the lady’s warning?”
“I turned my ankle at the start,” Romulus said. His voice dropped in volume with every syllable. “I was coming to get you. You can see that.”
“Then let’s listen to what the lady has to say,” Remus said loudly. “After all, she rescued us from Numitor’s men.”
“Sure, we’ll listen,” his brother agreed, mumbling now. “I don’t see there’s much to talk about since you’re all free.”
“Come,” Herosilla said, striding toward the bonfire in the correct expectation that the men would jump out of her way. It put the seal on her dominance of the assembly. “I want to sit down, and I want all of you to hear.”
The closest thing to seats in Palatium were the stones set around the fire for village councils. Herosilla took one that was a hand’s breadth higher than the others. She needed not only rest for her legs but also the effect she would gain by standing again. Romulus and Remus seated themselves to either side of her.
Faustulus was across the circle. He gestured to the fire and ordered, “Let it burn down. No one else will be arriving tonight.”
Herosilla waited for the assembly to settle around her. Most of the men were strangers. Local shepherds whispered to their neighbors, telling them who the lady with the strange accent and manner was.
The only women present were those from Palatium, and they kept very much to the fringes. War was men’s work; though women were the second booty after sheep.
In clear, ringing tones trained by declamations to groups much larger than this one, Herosilla said, “We are going to put Numitor on the throne of Alba.”
The shepherds buzzed. “We are going to do that,” Herosilla said, ripping through the amazement the way a sickle saws grain, “because Numitor has enough intelligence to give us what we want. If Amulius had the wit the gods gave to sheep, he’d have put his brother out of the way ages ago.”
Faustulus lurched unsteadily to his feet. “Lady!” he cried. “We’re Amulius’ men, all of us here.”
“Are you?” Herosilla said. “Is that what you believe?”
She stood and pointed to her right. “Remus, when Numitor would have seized you the other day, was it Amulius or your own right arm that preserved you?” She turned and pointed to Romulus on her other side. “Romulus, when you gathered men to free your brother, did you bother to ask Amulius for help? No, you expected to have to fight all the men of Alba, because you knew the king’s spine is as soft as wax in the August sun!”
Her tone was harsh and hectoring. The shepherds had never heard a trained voice before. It stunned them the way sight of Herosilla’s finery had blasted the wills of those she needed to impress in Alba.
Herosilla swept her eyes around the assembly. “If your children were starving this winter, would Amulius feed them? Though you know his table never lacks for the meat you raise! If this Amulius owns your souls, then indeed the gods have sent me to the wrong place. I was meant to go to a land of men, not ewes!”
As a scholar, she sneered at the notion of deities. When she fought—verbally or in other fashions—she used any weapon she thought would be effective.
Herosilla paused, letting the murmurs die down. Before she could resume, Remus said, “Lady?”
She nodded curtly to him. Remus remained seated, but everyone in the village could hear his voice.
“Lady,” he said, “all you say about Amulius is true. But how can we trust Numitor after we’ve made him king?”
“An excellent question,” Herosilla said, directing her cold smile to the full audience. “When we’ve succeeded, you and your brother will lead a colony of the citizens of Alba who hate Numitor worst. You’ll found a new town right here in company with the folk of Palatium and the other villages on these hills, brought together in such strength—”
The crowd gasped with a sound like surf on gravel. Romulus jumped to his feet.
“—that Numitor won’t be able to touch you!”
Herosilla crossed her arms. No one could have shouted over the shocked babbling. Trying to do so would have made her ridiculous.
The brothers looked at her from either side. After a moment, Romulus began to smile.
The sun was still a finger’s breadth below the eastern horizon, but a few early comers were arranging their wares in Alba’s forum. The owner of a fish stall bartered with a herdsman’s wife as she hung skeins of naturally colored wool on a tripod of sticks.
Servius, the chief of Numitor’s guards, opened one leaf of the gate enough that Herosilla could slip out. Servius himself stayed hidden.
Herosilla stalked across the forum in brisk majesty. The fishmonger, then the wool seller, turned and gaped.
The guards at the king’s gate didn’t notice Herosilla until she was halfway toward them. They stiffened. One lifted his spear, then leaned it against the stockade behind him as if embarrassed by his initial impulse.